NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #32

[nauticant]

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy (VH), has brought claims in the employment tribunal against her employer; Fife Health Board (the Board) and another employee, Dr B Upton. Ms Peggie’s claims are of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claims to be a transwoman, that is observed as male at birth but asserting a female gender identity.

The Employment Tribunal hearing started on Monday 3 February 2025 and was expected to last 2 weeks. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It resumed on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July and then there will be 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing will end on 30 July.

The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 February.

Access to view the hearing remotely was obtainable by sending an email request to [email protected] by 5pm on Wednesday 9 July. Detailed instructions were provided here:

drive.google.com/file/d/16-9POEZ7yHWUr6EmbfquJZO18Gv78bSm/view

The hearing is being live tweeted by x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-005. This also has threadreaderapp archives of live-tweeting of the sessions of the hearing for those who can't follow on Twitter, for example: archive.ph/WSSjg.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Links to previous threads #1 to #29 can be found in the header of thread #30.

Thread 30: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375337-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-30
Thread 31: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375819-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-31

Would it be possible for people to turn their attention to this post by@FayeRCfrom a previous thread:

I have a similar court case in England's side which aims to protect single-sex facilities for women. It is in need of support to cover legal fees and can be found by searching for Faye Russell-Caldicott on crowdjustice.com

"I have issued an employment tribunal complaint against NHS England for indirect discrimination on the basis of sex (women), religion (Islam), philosophical belief (gender critical) and disability (PTSD) for having a policy in place which effectively renders the supposed single-sex toilet, changing room and showering facilities as mixed-sex."

Witnesses in the hearing so far with skeleton chronology:

Monday, 3 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Tuesday, 4 February 2025
Sandie Peggie

Wedneday, 5 February 2025
Sandie Peggie
Maya Forstater
Mr Peggie (Sandie Peggie's husband)
Nicole Peggie (Sandie Peggie's daughter)

Thursday, 6 February 2025
a row about disclosure particularly over BMA documents
Sheila Bell (Sandie Peggie's mum)
Beth Upton

Friday, 7 February 2025
very late start, massive row over disclosure, agreed that Beth Upton would start giving evidence on Monday

Monday 10 February 2025
Beth Upton

Tuesday 11 February 2025
Beth Upton
collapse of public access

Wednesday 12 February 2025
Beth Upton

Thursday 13 February 2025
Esther Davidson

Friday 14 February 2025
Esther Davidson

a break of many months

Wednesday 16 July 2025
Isla Bumba

Thursday 17 July 2025
Gillian Malone

Friday 18 July 2025
Elspeth Pitt
Louise Curran

For anyone following Tribunal Tweets, this is their list of abbreviations used:

C/SP - Claimant, Sandy Peggie
NC - Naomi Cunningham, C’s barrister
MG - Margaret Gribbons, C’s solicitor
R1/Board - first respondent, Fife Health Board
R2/DU - second respondent, Dr B Upton
JR - Jane Russell, KC, barrister for Rs
AW - Adam Watson, solicitor for Rs
J - Employment Judge Alexander Kemp
ET - Employment Tribunal
P1, P2 - additional panel members
CR - changing room
AE - Accident & emergency department
B&H - bullying and harassment
SocMed - social media
SM - Sex Matters
HR - Human Rights
TW - Transwoman
HI - hate incident
PCP - provision, criteria or practice is a rule/policy/ practice that can put ppl at a disadvantage based on certain characteristics. The term is used in employment law to assess whether an employers actions create different outcomes for employees based on their characteristics.
KS - Kate Searle, DU's supervisor and A&E consultant
ED - Esther Davidson, SP’s line manager
IB - Isla Bumba
GM - Gillian Malone
EP - Elspeth Pitt
LC - Louise Curran
SF - Stuart Fraser, SP’s RCN Rep
AG - Angela Glancy, headed up SP's investigation
IX - investigation
CX or FC - (formal) complaint
DX - disciplinary
FtP - fitness to practice

NHS Fife Comms Dept signing in

Is this right? Am I doing it right? I've got a press release here somewhere.

Oh wait, now there's a new one.

I the right side of a bottle of wine so I care a little less than before.

I haven't been following today, very confused about the statements - what's going on?

Man, you're in for a journey then...

Oh man you are about to have the time of your life. Grab a drink....

Even r/Scotland on Reddit are pulling their hair out at these latest developments- a shocking number of sensible comments!

Tell us, tell us, tell us!

Reddit in sensible shocker...

What's the world coming to.

I’m not sure I can stand the excitement.

I'm still reading thread 31 but trying to make sure I'm on top of this too! Difficult now I'm 2 gins down.

Some sensible comments on Reddit?! We really are in the upside down now...

We NEED to see them, it'll be a world first!😂

Do we reckon NHS Fife have clocked off for the day yet?

I'm getting this 'video' rolling in my head.

In deep Geordie accent
"Day 4 in the reboot of the Sandie Peggie Tribunal. Beth is in the kitchen crying after fight night. She is being comforted by one of the other housemates."

Transgenderuk reddit seems to be studiously ignoring the whole thing, at a glance.

Interesting post on X from Joanna Cherry saying that the Scottish Information Commissioner has described NHS Fife's statement as 'petulant'. The article also notes that case has cost them over £250k. How can they justify this use of public money?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25325958.nhs-fife-faces-new-foi-probe-sandie-peggie-case/?ref=twtrec

I hope they add the overtime bill to the information they supply to the commissioner office.

just when you think they cannot make things worse for themselves NHS Fife does. It's kind of awesome.

honestly, every time I think I've peaked, a higher peak appears.
How many others will have been peaked by today's shambles?

NHS Fife are currently Wile E. Coyote who's run off a cliff, and it still running in mid-air.

I read on x in a post by a lawyer that Fife could just concede, as the evidence against them is so overwhelming. Is that correct? It would save costs of all their chosen witnesses time still to come and more humiliation! But as they are sharing legal defence with Upton perhaps they don't want to?

Reports of a new mountain range appearing in Eastern Scotland. They're calling them the sonny Upton-lands.